About Me

Dr Khanna is a practicing psychiatrist, leader, researcher, educator, and start-up advisor. His primary areas of interest are psychological trauma and digital health. In addition to several clinical qualifications and a PhD in applied artificial intelligence, he has pursued professional development in the areas of governance, finance, entrepreneurship, coding, AI, design thinking, and leadership.

Relentless learning is a central tenant to his life and he is always looking to connect with other thinkers and do-ers.

Career overview

• 2010
  🎓 Graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Bachelor of Medicine & Surgery and Arts (Philosophy) (MBBS/BA)
• 2014
  🎓 Graduated from the University of Melbourne with a Master of Psychiatry (MPsychiatry)
  🥇 Bruce Singh Prize for highest GPA in cohort
• 2016
  🔬 Commenced academic appointment at the University of Melbourne, now a Senior Lecturer
  📜Tutoring, subject development & co-ordination, and research
  💰 >$8.7 million in competitive research grants (Updated 2025)
• 2017
  🩺 Completed psychiatry training at Austin Health (FRANZCP)
  Continued working clinically at the Psychological Trauma Recovery Service, supporting adults experiencing trauma-related mental ill health
• 2019
  🔍 Commenced PhD in digital mental health / AI (Project short title: A digital assessment paradigm for PTSD) at the University of Melbourne
• 2020
  🌿 Entered the start-up space, completing the Open Talent Pathway at RMIT activator
  ⚒️ Co-founded early-stage mental health IoT start-up Thumos Health which was selected into the TRAM Track pre-accelerator
  Subsequently began advising Flintworks, then MoreGoodDays and several other early stage companies through Australian Clinical Entrepreneurship Program & CICA lab
• 2021
  💼 Commenced work at Phoenix Australia as Director, Innovation & Medical Governance and subsequently co-leading what became Transforming Trauma Victoria
• 2023
  🌱 Commenced work as the founding Clinical Director at Transforming Trauma Victoria
• 2023
  🎓 Completed the Company Directors’ Course (GAICD) at the Australian Institute of Company Directors
• 2025
  💼 Commenced a fractional executive role at SANE Australia as the Chief Clinical Officer
• 2025
  🎓 Completed PhD (‘A Multi-modal Digital Assessment Paradigm for Posttrauamtic Stress Disorder’)

💼 Current roles

Chief Clinical Officer | SANE Australia

SANE is a world leader in digital psychosocial recovery programs for adults experiencing complex mental illness and trauma, as well as for their family, carers and kin.

As a fractional executive, I lead the SANE Service Design and Evaluation unit, implementing our new Unified Service Model to bring care at scale to every Australian in need.

Founding Clinical Director | Transforming Trauma Victoria at Phoenix Australia

• Co-leading the design and establishment of the world’s first jurisdiction-wide trauma service and one of the largest collaborations in healthcare in Australia. Led by Phoenix Australia, TTV represents 13 nationally and internationally recognised health services, non-profits and research institutes coming together to build something new.
• Co-designed with hundreds of trauma impacted Victorians and those that care for them, supported by experts from over 85 local and international organisations.

Consultant Psychiatrist | Austin Health

• Oversaw clinical care and service delivery to outpatients and inpatients at the Psychological Trauma Recovery Service.
• Revived the outpatient group treatment program for veterans and serving members.
• Implemented a novel digital measurement-based-care initiative that delivered increased efficiency and more responsive care.
• Lead advisor, digital mental health
• Supervised psychiatry trainees.

Senior Lecturer | University of Melbourne

• Several research projects
• Regular online and face to face teaching activities
• Senior lecturer since 2021, previously Honorary Fellow (2016-2021)

Strategic advisor | More Good Days

More Good Days is a VC-backed health tech start-up that helps people manage their chronic pain with digital behavioural treatments.

I support its mission to transform the lives of those suffering from chronic pain through strategic, operational and clinical advice.

⌛ Recent roles

Director, Innovation & Medical Governance | Phoenix Australia

• Wide ranging role focused on fostering innovation in all parts of Phoenix’s operations from research to consulting, policy, training, and practice improvement.
• Launched two new clinical services with a range of stakeholders with a digitally enabled measurement-based-care approach and close research and training interfaces, one of which won an international award in 2022.
• Provision of clinical governance support to our four clinical streams which together treated over 400 individuals across > 270 in 2021-2022
• Business development and strategy

Coach, Women’s Fellowship | Startmate

Startmate is the epicentre for startup ambition across Australia and New Zealand. The Startmate Women Fellowship is a two-month program helping ambitious women find their dream job in a startup. I coached four cohorts of the program.

Co-Founder | Thumos Health

Thumos Health was an early stage start-up utilising smart-home technology to improve the lives of those with a Serious Mental Illness. I was reponsible for:

• Market validation and business model development
• Product features and roadmap
• User analysis and co-development
• Academic and industry partnerships

We wound up in 2021 to pursue other opportunities for impact.

Director & Consultant Psychiatrist | Khanna Psychiatry

• Assessment and treatment services
• DVA impairment assessments

Stopped private practice 2021 after 4 years.

💵 Grants & Scholarships

🎓 Qualifications

PhD

[2025 @ University of Melbourne]

A Multi-modal Digital Assessment Paradigm for Posttrauamtic Stress Disorder.

I developed a remote, multimodal PTSD diagnostic assessment using everyday devices. Using smartphone check-ins, trauma narratives, and facial metrics, I was able to detected PTSD with high sensitivity. The work shows scalable feasibility, tracks symptom dynamics, and defines practical directions for screening and earlier intervention in real-world settings.

This transdisciplinary PhD at Australia’s highest ranked University blended Psychiatry, Behavioural Neuroscience, Affective Computing & Artificial Intelligence Applications in Health. I passed with no revisions in December 2025, with my degree conferred January 30 2026.

GAICD - Company Directors Course

[2023 @ Australian Institute of Company Directors]

Intensive practical course covering the essentials of contemporary governance, including legal compliance, strategy development, risk management & effective board skills.

Specialist Certificate in Clinical Leadership

[2018 @ University of Melbourne / Melbourne Business School]

Leadership course taught by faculty from the Melbourne Business School

FRANZCP - Fellow of the Royal Australia and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists

[2017 @ RANZCP]

Specialty training in psychiatry. I also had the priviledge to serve as president of the Victorian Association of Psychiatry Trainees (2014) and as the Austin’s principal registrar during my training years.

MPsychiatry - Master of Psychiatry

[2014 @ University of Melbourne]

Awarded the Bruce Singh Prize (Highest GPA)

MBBS/BA - Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery and Bachelor of Arts

[2010 @ University of Melbourne]

• M.B.B.S - Undergraduate medical qualification
• B.A. with a major in philosophy

Additional activities included serving as President of the University of Melbourne Medical Students’ Society, representing medical students on the AMA Victoria & AMSA councils as well as various faculty committees. I also co-founded the Medical Student Council of Victoria.

🥇 Awards

Sarah Haley Memorial Award for Clinical Excellence [2022 by the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies]

This award is given to a clinician or group of clinicians in direct service to traumatized individuals. The 2022 award was won by a team from Phoenix Australia, led by Jane Nursey (Head of Clinical Services) for BlueHub, an innovative mental health service for police members.

Bruce Singh Prize [2014 by the University of Melbourne Department of Psychiatry]

Awarded to the Master of Psychiatry student with the highest grade point average in the cohort

📜 Other certificates

• Human-Centred Service design [2023 @ IDEOU]

Part of IDEOU’s advanced design thinking certificate, this cohort course covered the essentials of service design including co-design best practices, design research & development of service blueprints.

• Finance for Non-financial Managers [2023 @ Melbourne Business School]

Designed for mid-to-senior managers wanting to improve knowledge of accounting. It covered the basics of evaluating investment proposals, understanding financial reports, budgeting and costing. (Credential ID: IWvqXAtlSqK6QSmz3zHgFQ)

• Open Talent Pathway [2020 @ RMIT Activator]

Competitive program for graduate research students with entrepreneurial potential. I worked in a team to develop a sports technology business from the ground up, from product, customer and market research to developing and pitching a solution.

• Tram Track Pre-accelerator [2022 @ TRAM/University of Melbourne]

Translating Research at Melbourne (TRAM)’s TRACK program is a competitive, university-based pre-accelerator focused on market validation and business-model development. Thumos was selected to participate in the 2020 cohort.

• Machine Learning [2019 @ Stanford University on Coursera]

Introductory course to Machine Learning using MATLAB (Credential ID 7TGTHJRMVYGD)

• Learn to Program: The Fundamentals [2019 @ University of Toronto on Coursera]

Introductory course to coding in Python (Credential ID TJYABSD2P8HW)

• Design and Interpretation of Clinical Trials [2018 @ Johns Hopkins University on Coursera]

The name says it all 😉 (Credential ID XFSP8RPVLWJT)

• Statistics in Medicine [2013 @ Stanford University]

Medical statistics intensive course (Credential ID c61f9e2baddd4900a65fdb81d83317ff)